Bibio has the distinction of having appeared on our lists of Best Spring Albums and Favorite Fall Albums while also popping up in a Lost Children summer mix. Now teaming up with the pastoral synthesist Dorian Concept, the artist has produced a collection that is flexible enough for at least three seasons; we’ve yet to hear how it might sound in winter, but suspect that its tones may be too warm for the whiter months.
Friends since 2009, Stephen Wilkinson and Oliver Johnson share a love for “aging technologies” and imperfect analogue equipment, which results in a sound that is occasionally brittle, held together by tape and twine. The album is suffused with a soft tenderness that borders on nostalgia, reflecting the cover, in which a child already seems to be looking back on a younger, smaller self. When does nostalgia first surface, and when does it set in for good? Without providing such specific questions, the two artists set out to offer Answers.
As is certainly no surprise, the album makes numerous references to childhood, beginning with “Womb Glow.” Already one is imagining the parents’ happy preparation, a coat of pasture-green paint in the nursery, the construction of a crib, a happy mobile that pings and twirls. The piano and synthesizer dance decorously around the room in happy anticipation. The two singles follow, beginning with “Lichen Trip,” yielding the first instance of percussion and an upbeat vibe, like a brief barefoot nature walk. While instrumental, the piece contains what one might call a chorus that sticks in the mind like a pleasant thought. We only wish it were longer! “Shame,” despite its title, lacks any dour hint, but instead percolates like bubbles in a stream. A central synth pattern travels up and down the scale like a curious child, never straying too far from the yard, perhaps under the watchful eye of a canine companion. At the end, rain falls and wind chimes ring, a gorgeous denouement. “Pigeon Harp” is even faster and catchier, its kind guitar notes slightly warped in processing like driftwood soaked in salt.
The titles “Jelly Pencil,” “Sugar Rain” and “Star Bird” plunge the listener into pleasant memories: colouring at the kitchen table, listening to a parent reading fanciful books at bedtime. The music follows suit, wondrous and bright, providing its Answers not through direct exposition, but sound. The 80-second “Pearl Net” is particularly thick, a forest of bell and chime and hum, exposing the richness of the imagination and beckoning the adult to return.
“Pins & Needles” gets sucked into a vortex at the end, like a glitching battery in a haywire machine. This is the first generation whose memories include faulty computers. Real children appear at the heart of “Sugar Rain,” playfully inventing their next adventures. A contented baby seems to coo in “The Unknown.” “Stratocumulus” conjures images of lying on one’s back, finding shapes in clouds. In the same way, one may “hear” different shapes in these pieces, experience different memories, stumble upon new insights. Such experiences are answers of their own. (Richard Allen)
